Aphrodisiac is defined by Webster as "an agent (as a food or drug) that arouses or is held to arouse sexual desire" and is commonly used to describe a state of heightened excitement. Many commercial organizations have sought to uncover and exploit the body's natural feelings of desire with chemical compounds - this is not a recent phenomena. Love potions in some form or another have been around since men began their conquest of women. The ancient greeks used love potions and the indians use herbal concoctions and incense (or peyote!). The modern day perfume can also be considered a "love potion" designed to attract the opposite sex.
The one-liner "grief is nature's most powerful aphrodisiac" was made infamous by Chaz (Will Ferrell) in the movie Wedding Crashers. As a pioneer in easy and sleazy ways to get women into bed, Chaz starts to crash funerals under the guise of a family friend and becomes a shoulder to lean on for the women he seduces.
This got me thinking about the powerful feelings of grief. People always say that near death experiences (car accident, etc) can cause a heightened sexual arousal - there is a whole separate issue with those that are into BDSM to achieve a staged environment in which to achieve this heightened sense, however, that is not the point of my post.
Does grief actually trigger something in our brain chemistry that follows with a raised sense of sexual attraction?
In my preliminary search it appears that grief can be a foundation for many sexual disorders. It can lead women and men both into varying states of impotence and can prevent them from achieving orgasm.
Was this just a convenient one-liner that made for good TV or is there any real truth behind it?
10 comments:
Only thing that comes close in my opinion to grief being an aphrodisiac is the idea of "make-up sex." It's not uncommon for a couple after a fight to feel good about it ending and have make-up sex. Ever feel good after you cry for a long time? I think that CRYING more triggers a happy feeling (that could be arousal) than grief does. I don't know that I've ever stood at a funeral looking around for hotties?? Just sayin.
Otherwise, sex, especially in a marriage or relationship, can be used to comfort. Maybe this is the feeling he was talking about. I don't know. Will Ferrel is some guy!
You know, I was wondering about this myself recently. I had a loved one pass away not too long ago and I found myself utterly bewildered by how horny I got. Not that I was aroused by the process of grief or the idea of losing someone- nothing like that- I just suddenly had more pent up sexual tension and frustration than I'd ever really had. I wonder if it's because we feel such an array of emotions such as tension, frustration, anguish, etc when we are grieving that a natural way for our bodies to relieve tension is through sex? Maybe our body and mind naturally crave it as a means to counteract all of the pain and stress that grief brings on?
"You know, I was wondering about this myself recently. I had a loved one pass away not too long ago and I found myself utterly bewildered by how horny I got. Not that I was aroused by the process of grief or the idea of losing someone- nothing like that- I just suddenly had more pent up sexual tension and frustration than I'd ever really had. I wonder if it's because we feel such an array of emotions such as tension, frustration, anguish, etc when we are grieving that a natural way for our bodies to relieve tension is through sex? Maybe our body and mind naturally crave it as a means to counteract all of the pain and stress that grief brings on?"
I think you could be right, I think that when we reach an extreme level of grief combined with some self awareness or even repression about our sexual desires our minds will "suggest" sex to us as a way to cope with the pain. Sex after all is a sure way to make you feel better, feel like life has a purpose (although this is from a very narrow perspective on sex, I'm an 18 year male). I believe in nature, and thus, evolution, and that our brains are carefully evolved and capable of recognizing truth and logic. I also believe very strongly through experience, the powers of the subconscious mind. I think that this phenomenon is one of the many subconscious mechanisms of the mind that are supposed to make us feel better and have the desire to continue living. The antithesis would be to experience sadness that would translate into pain that would translate into unbearability in which case we could want to die (experience suicidal thoughts, which in my opinion is a similar subconscious mechanism of the brain as is... experiencing sexual desire during extreme grief). Well yeah that's my stab at it.
i believe you are absolutely right, jacob. i lost someone extremely close to me a few months ago. since then, i've had uncontrollable urges that won't go away. yes, it doesn't help that i'm an 18 year old female. but still, it has been bothering me from a few weeks after his passing; that is all. i guess it is a way our bodies try to cope with such grief. our bodies know that sex provides pleasure and happiness, and it subconsciously is telling us to have sex as an easy way to feel better. you said it perfectly.
This sounds so right for my situation. I know its been a year from your post but googling I found this and yes , recently my father died. It hasn't been a month since it happened and at first I had deppresive days and then days when I depended on my uncles . Now I only want satisfaction not like a sick idea of having a man with me will bring my dad back but it just came up and thinking like this I don't feel guilty anymore..
1Thinking about it from a purely biological/psychological standpoint, I think that when people are reminded of their invariable mortality they feel the need to complete their biological obligation of leaving a lasting legacy for themselves by getting their genes into the future i.e. having sexual intercourse.
This has been so helpful, you mention age I'm a 60 year old women, I've always liked sex, but what I've been experiencing recently led me to this site. I lost my partner he died suddenly of a heart attack, we'd been together 26 years. My kids left home at the same time, I had to sell the house and had massive financial stress. I found myself acting in a way I never have done, my need for sex is almost overwhelming. I was getting worried about myself as although it doesn't seem so bad it was almost eating me away. Now I can see it's yet another link with grief, I feel better knowing that. So don't think it's because your young, it happens to anyone.
Post funeral sex happens, quite often. I don't know if it's a need for closeness, a need to feel alive, or a need to feel good (as in pleasure), or something else entirely, but I have and I'm sure many people have done it. No one is at a funeral "looking for hotties" as someone so ridiculously stated earlier, but post funeral if you have a partner you feel comfortable with, it's likely to happen.
It occurred to me that an element of grief stimulates a deep and ancient drive to procreate as in make another human being because we just lost one and we need a new one. In modern life, of course this drive is completely unnecessary. But it is life affirming as well as fun to have an orgasm,a pleasurable release that says ok well I'm still here.
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